Metafiction

books that are used for the backgrounds in the story, this book itself can be crumpled, stained, and even bitten. Both this final bite and all the other metafictive designs throughout the story shed light on the status of books as artefacts: Jeffers created a book about books from books. Reflecting on how Henry becomes a phenomenon because he can “eat a whole book in one go” yet suffers from illness since he does not “digest it properly”, the reader might recognize Jeffers’ parody of consuming books quickly to obtain knowledge. On the back cover, he also clearly exhorts the reader not to eat the book at home. The overall design draws the reader’s attention to the concept of books as physical conveyors of knowledge. Like Waugh describing metafiction, Jeffers emphasizes the book’s status “as an artefact” and further “pose[s] questions about the relationship between fiction and reality” (1984, p.2). In conclusion, Jeffers depicts Henry as a loveable character moving in an interesting constructed space with unusual backgrounds throughout the book. Although it comes in at the last moment, the bite mark creates “the fourth dimension” that is the space shared between the physical book and the reading audience. This surprise empowers Henry to leave the standard three planes of space and “move into space traditionally reserved for the audience” (Goldstone, 2009, p.322). Moreover, the back endpaper features a bigger piece of broccoli and an arrow, providing the reader with a…

What do you understand by the term ‘historiographic metafiction’? Apply this concept to TWO of the texts from weeks 2-8 and consider how historic fiction operates through the gap between the event and the fact. The term historiographic metafiction as Patrica Waugh notes is “fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality” are both intensely self-reflexive and yet…

In Art Spiegelman’s Maus, he uses metafiction to establish things he would not have been able to communicate otherwise. Spiegelman created a character to represent himself in the outer story of the novel. This made the book more credible and created trust between Art and the audience. Using himself as a character helped him portray his emotions toward his father’s story. The utilization of metafiction let us closely see Art and Vladek’s relationship, like Art’s rebellious nature. It also exposed…

Have you ever told a story, but adjusted some of the finer details in order to make it more appealing to another? People do this. It is just human nature to try and convince someone else that the event was genuinely intriguing. O'Brien does this within the storyline of The Things They Carried, by using metafiction to distinguish his storytelling and how to tell stories according to his thoughts. "By telling Stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down…

In Catherine Calloway’s article, “How to Tell a True War Story”: Metafiction in The Things They Carried, Calloway highlights the inner workings of both the writing style and alternate persona Tim O’Brien creates within the book. By using fiction and introducing different viewpoints, O’Brien is able to strengthen the truth behind the story. In order to tell his story, O’Brien uses many different types of elements, ranging from unfinished works to altering the stories to fit his narrative.…

Hutcheon, 1994: 60). Various types of irony can be observed in Atonement due to its the complex narrative perspectives and its nature i.e. a metafiction. However, the focus in this study will be on the most noticeable type that is verbal irony. which reflects on the protagonists’ interpersonal relationships, their attitudes towards each other. The analysis focuses on the postmodern concept of irony in Atonement. In her book entitled Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction…

Magical realism is “… characterized by the matter-of-fact inclusions of fantastic or mythical elements into apparently realistic fiction” (Edison). Characteristics of this genre include plentitude, hybridity, metafiction, and an unreliable narrator. A story that shows magical realism is “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” by Gabriel García Márquez. Márquez is recognized as one of the best authors who combines reality with fantasy: “… García Márquez, combining radically different realities, what…

In “‘How to Tell a True War Story’: Metafiction in The Things They Carried,” Catherine Calloway discusses the interpretations of the genre and reality versus fiction in Tim O’Brien’s memoire. In her analysis, Calloway introduces the term metafiction to explain the genre of the book. While it is a war memoire, The Things They Carried makes the reader question the real and fictional parts of the author’s narrative. Metafiction is a genre that explores the possible functionality of the memoire, in…

story, “Happy Endings,” is in the genre of metafiction, where a writer breaks what is called “the fourth wall” and destroys the barriers between the world that is created and its creator. Examples of this have been seen throughout the history of writing, but the term itself was not coined until 1970—three years after Roland Barthes wrote his infamous essay “The Death of the Author” (even Atwood comments in the prelude at how disappointed she was that someone else came up with the…

is what she calls historiographic metafiction. Most of the historiographic novels emphasize self-reflexivity and our paradoxical relations to past events. Historiographic metafiction somehow acknowledges the paradox of the past, that is to say, the past is accessible to us today only in the form of text. As Fredric Jameson reminds us, “history is not a text, but it is only accessible in textual form” (Homer, 4). Actually, historical metafiction sees history as a story, through which we…